Posted by
Steve Maloney on Monday, May 07, 2007 8:46:58 PM
Tomorrow's column on "Who is Heather Wison -- and Why Should You Care?" will be up by noon EDT here. Thanks for the patience.
YOU CAN SEE MY ORIGINAL PIECE ON ROBERT NOVAK'S RECENT COLUMNS BY SCROLLING DOWN. IN RESPONSE TO THAT COLUMN, I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING COMMENT FROM BRUCE SHERMAN OF OAKLAND, OREGON, A FREQUENT PARTICIPANT ON TOWNHALL.
THE BEST FRIEND THE LEFT COULD HAVE
The only point in your column that I disagree with is your statement that Novak "played right into their hands."
This implies an innocent error in judgment on Novak's part. I believe the truth may be far less benign.
For many years, Novak has been anything but a help to Republicans. Like his ideological soulmate, Pat Buchanan, Novak is divisive, inflammatory, and alienating. That Novak is called "The Prince of Darkness" comes not from affection but from decades of cheap shots and hit-and-run "reporting." Of course, his bitter, glowering demeanor and Peter Lorre looks don't exactly help.
Novak has been called a "Paleoconservative", as has Buchanan, but I am not sure that is correct. Novak has always struck me as a guy who is more interested in himself than the GOP or the conservative movement. If he can further his notoriety by printing something --even if baseless and reckless--he'll do it. The consequences be damned.
I have always thought that Novak's high media visibility was a byproduct of MSM bias. Novak and Buchanan are among the LAST guys we want on television purporting--expressly or implicitly--to be representative of conservatives. Yet they are featured with a frequency not justified by their individual merits.
I do not believe that the MSM features them so prominently because it intentionally wants to make conservatives look bad---although that is certainly the effect. I think that the mental image of the average conservative in the minds of the MSM is of someone like Novak and Buchanan. Thus, when the liberal media need a conservative on the air, who better than someone as negative as the MSM stereotype?
I don't think the MSM take the time to ask "Are Novak and Buchanan REALLY representative of today's conservatives?"
The answer, of course, is "NO."
-- Bruce Sherman
Following is my response to Bruce's comments:
When I got your comment, I felt more than a little ashamed. You produced a hard-hitting piece that's absolutely on target. I had been dancing around some, perhaps trying to cut Novak some slack that in fact he didn't deserve. Novak gets presented, in both MSM and right-wing outlets -- including Townhall -- as a conservative, which he's not. It's as if someone identified Ariana Huffington as conservative because she pretended to be one many years ago when she was married to mega-bucks Michael.
As for "conservative" Pat Buchanan: the last Republican presidential candidate he had any enthusiasm for was, well, Pat Buchanan. There are people reading this (and one writing it) who have cats-and-dogs who are more conservative than Buchanan. The fact that he's anti-immigrant (NOT anti-illegal-immigrant), anti-Israel (a nice way of putting what Bill Buckley called Pat's anti-semitism), anti-evangelical, anti-female, and anti-gay does not make him a Man of the Right. He's anti-everything except himself and his small, diminishing circle of admirers.
If I were the editor of TH, which I'm not, I'd ask Novak to peddle his propaganda somewhere else. (Today's TH column attempts to throw a wet blanket on Fred Thompson.)
With Buchanan, the proper step would be for conservatives to denounce his backward views and discard him. Buchanan and Novak -- who've made themselves very rich by playing the role of the MSM's favorite "conservatives" need to get a life -- somewhere out of our sight. They both disgust me.
Stephen R. Maloney
Ambridge, PA
Today, on the TH main blog Matt Lewis has a posting on "(Laura) Ingraham vs. (Bruce) Bartlett." He's the guy who wrote the piece called "Conservatives for Hillary," which indicates the Dems are going to win in 2008 (wrong!) and thus conservatives should back Hillary. On Laura's show, Bartlett talked about what a great President Bill Clinton was and how he balanced the budget, etc. I wrote the following comment (in red, to convey my anger) at Bartlett's nonsense.
BARTLETT DRIVEL, CLINTON AWFUL